BP’s Kwinana refinery to shut for maintenance

BP is to to shut down its Kwinana refinery in western Australia for maintenance.

The 146,000-barrel-per-day facility is expected to be closed for eight weeks to allow the work to take place.

A spokeswoman for the supermajor said the bulk of the maintenance will focus on the residue cracking unit which converts heavy oil from the crude distillation unit and vacuum distillation units into lighter fuels such as diesel and gasoline.

Other routine maintainance will also be undertaken at the same time.

BP claim that there will also be capital investments on other major units but would not elaborate.

The maintenance is the first in a new four-year cycle, meaning the refinery is able to operate at full capacity for longer period of time.

In 2012/13, Australian refineries supplied around 63 per cent of the country’s total demand for petroleum products. The remaining 37 per cent of demand was met by imports.